The Insurance and Risk Finance Facility (IRFF) is a flagship initiative of UNDP’s SDG Finance Hub supporting UNDP country offices—including Egypt—to strengthen the role of insurance and risk finance in sustainable development. As part of the Global Policy Network, IRFF provides policy guidance, tools, methodologies, and global partnership to help countries design and scale innovative insurance products and risk management solutions to advance sustainable development.

The Facility works to transform insurance markets by supporting legislative and regulatory reforms, enhancing institutional capacity, and promoting inclusive insurance models tailored to emerging markets and underserved populations. Beyond risk transfer, IRFF leverages insurance approaches to reduce risk, protect livelihoods, strengthen ecosystems, and accelerate investment in climate resilience and net-zero development by integrating insurance approaches into development frameworks and financing structures.

Through IRFF, UNDP builds stronger, more inclusive, and more shock-resilient societies by strengthening insurance markets in developing countries. UNDP supports legislative and regulatory reforms, alongside institutional capacity development, complemented by investments in advocacy, training, education, and collaborative product development with industry partners to design insurance solutions tailored to emerging markets and underserved client segments. These efforts are organized across UNDP’s five focus areas, forming a set of interlinked workstreams that collectively strengthen financial resilience.

Through IRFF, UNDP helps build countries’ financial resilience, ensuring households, businesses, and farmers are better protected against climate, socio-economic, and disaster -related risks. 

Situational Background

Egypt is ranked 24th globally for exposure and vulnerability to natural disaster risks. The country faces a wide range of climate and disaster risks: flash floods, sandstorms, , rising temperatures, sea-level rise especially affecting the Nile Delta, increasingly frequent extreme weather events, earthquakes, and drought. These hazards threaten agriculture, infrastructure, and community well-being. 

Egypt is making progress toward more robust risk management and strengthen its insurance ecosystem. The newly launched unified insurance law includes a dedicated microinsurance provision signaling strong government commitment to expanding inclusive insurance solutions for vulnerable populations. However, key challenges persist:

• Low insurance penetration and limited consumer awareness
• Insufficient actuarial and technical capacity
• A market with few insurance products designed for emerging climate and disaster risks
• Gaps in integrating disaster risk financing into national resilience planning

Egypt has also developed a National Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction, yet further progress is needed to integrate disaster risk financing (DRF) into national resilience planning. A comprehensive disaster risk financing strategy would play a critical role in safeguarding the country against escalating climate-related and economic shocks, ensuring greater protection for households, businesses, and communities.

How are we doing this? 

IRFF’s work in Egypt focuses on four interconnected thematic areas:

Theme 1: Advocacy and Research

• Raising public awareness on insurance and disaster risk finance.
• Developing clear, accessible communication materials explaining key concepts such as sovereign risk, inclusive insurance, and agricultural insurance, helping the public and stakeholders better understand and engage with risk management solutions.

Theme 2: Enabling Environment

• Focusing on two streams, inclusive insurance and disaster risk financing:
• Supporting regulators to strengthen the regulation and supervision of inclusive insurance, including the development of digital regulatory tools and advanced data analysis platforms Conducting consumer protection and financial literacy campaigns to increase consumer awareness on inclusive insurance.
• Supporting industry development through the inclusive insurance training Programme (Training-of-Trainer’s modality and enhancing actuarial capacity building through the Global Actuarial (GAIN) Initiative with the support of the Milliman Center.
• Supporting the government to develop a national Disaster Risk Finance (DRF) strategy, build a country risk profile, and integrate DRF into Egypt’s National Strategy for DRR, and institutionalizing disaster risk financing within government as well as develop adequate institutional structures.

Theme 3: Product Development and Delivery

• Launching innovation challenges to simulate new inclusive insurance products for underserved groups and fostering innovation in the insurance sector.
• Working with the Insurance Development Forum to design sovereign disaster risk finance products and solutions, including drafting enabling policies and developing insurance schemes, market studies, and insurance solutions aligned with national needs. 

Theme 4: Integration into Development

• Training national partners on DRF, climate policy, and integrating risk financing into development planning.
• Ensuring that Egypt’s DRF strategy aligns with the Integrated National Financing Framework (INFF) for greater coherence across financial and development planning.

How will Egypt benefit?

Impacts: 

• Reduced vulnerability to climate and disaster shocks.
• Strengthened community and national resilience for households, communities, and national systems.     
• Improved ability to withstand, adapt to, and recover from climate-related and socio-economic risks.

Outcomes: 

Enhanced long-term resilience through delivery integrated insurance, risk finance, and investment solutions that enable market transformation.